I recently saw a portion of a Jonestown documentary. I didn't see the whole thing, but in the segment I saw, the red haired lady who wrote "the Voices of Jonestown" seemed to be the sole expert - and she had it all wrong - talking about the beauty of the Temple until they got to Jonestown... Either I missed the part where they got it right, or she completely missed, or the filmakers intentionally ignored, the fact that the "White Nights" practice sessions had been going on for months long before they left the States...
According to the other books, the survivor's accounts, it started with Jones offering them wine, which was normally forbidden. AFTER they drank the wine, he told them they were about to die. That the wine had been poisoned. As his sermon droned on, and the time passed, he said that it had all been a test, a test of their loyalty and devotion.
It became a regular occurrence, and the sermons focused on the notion of mass suicide - to send a message. Some of the accounts claim it was Tim Stoen who introduced the notion, who came up with the idea and researched the means of poisoning large groups of people.
Conditioned as they were, having gone through the drill as many times as they did, many of Jones' followers went along willingly at the end. Others pled for their lives. But they were trapped. They stood in line to drink the Kool-Aid. Those who refused were injected or shot. They killed the babies and children first.
This 45 MINUTE YouTube tape, titled Jonestown 'Deathtape' lets you listen to "The complete tape found in a tape recorder under Jim Jones' chair after the mass suicide in Jonestown on November 18, 1978." (Update: 1/4/07, the link has gone dead)
It is very disturbing as you listen to the children and babies in the background. They are being killed.
It's hard to listen to, BE FOREWARNED.
Some 910 people died that day, 287 of them were children.*
* The facts about
the children of Jonestown
***
A recent Berkeley Repertory Theatre play "The People's Temple" also ignored or left out astoundingly relevant material - Tim Stoen, the second-in-command-right-hand-man never got more than a brief two-line mention, when it was the battle over the son he signed away, and arranged to have sent to Jonestown to keep him away from his wife, it was Stoen's custody battle that led to Congressman Ryan's fateful trip to Jonestown - the absence of any mention of the systematic torture, abuse and rape, not just of women and children, but men, too - the catharsis sessions - and most importantly, the White Nights rehearsals that culminated in the final grotesque murder-suicides...
***
The revisionist history portraying Jonestown, and People's Temple as a happy loving place tends to ignore Tim Stoen entirely, and is being perpetuated by a new docu-ganda - Stanley Nelson's Jonestown documentary at the Rafael Film Center in downtown San Rafael, today, Sunday, November 5.
Les Kinsolving and his son confronted Nelson in Silver Spring, MD, back in June, Les' daughter followed suit in San Rafael today.
Les talks about it here: Jonestown: Low point in American journalism.
***
RELATED STORIES:
NCJ - Standing in the Shadows of Jonestown
* The facts about the children of Jonestown
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple
(Search Stoen - go to Transcript Q800)
Madman in our Midst - Jim Jones and the California Cover Up
wp - Signing away his kid
wp - Stoen's "Diversions Department" AKA "the Dirty Tricks Department" - plots to murder Les Kinsolving and poison the water supply of Washington DC
wp - "Paul can't trust anyone in that office except Tim."
SF Chronicle & Examiner - $3 million for hit list, says ex-Jones aide
Press Democrat - STOEN APOLOGIZES TO REPORTER'
Oh how I remember the line "Paul can't trust anyone in the office but Tim" and that's Tim Stoen Pauls trusty hand picked ADA. Wow. Tim Stoen the Kool Aid King. I did some reserach on Stoen via Google, there is just too much to real it all. Evil comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when Stoen was running for office, he used the phrase "powerful forces of evil" to describe the enemies of Paul - and I thought it was interesting because that was hte EXACT phrase I used to describe Stoen, Salzman and the rest of Paul's handlers - they also referred to "shady political operatives" - another phrase I had been using because it so aptly described them. They have an uncanny knack for saying exactly what they were up to, but twisting it. It happens over and over again, with Bob Ornelas saying he was against allowing a preschool to build in Arcata because he was "suspicious of their motives, when it turned out he was the one with motives - he wanted an eco-hostel on the property. And the latest Salzman quotes in the Times Standard. It's positively Orwellian opposite speak.
ReplyDeletemore good work Rose.
ReplyDeleteIt is disturbing when you come across history being revised. I remember reading the South Fork High School paper insert in the old Redwood Record around 1995 that kids interested in the Pacific Lumber issues wrote after being exposed for a year to Earth First! and EPIC people telling them the history of the company since Hurwitz had taken over. When it came to the year 1991, the year that PL put out serious negotiation compromise offers to environmental activists that would have literally saved us all thousands of old growth trees from being cut along with other offers that showed a willingness for over a year to overcome their differences, all this important information was completely dismissed with something to the effect that "After Redwood Summer in 1990, 1991 was a quiet year. Things picked up in 1992...etc, etc,"
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the enviro line was taught the kids and that's what they learned instead of ever learning that a big bad corporation actually went way out of its way to reach the environmental movement.
environmentalism as a religion?
ReplyDeleteYes. Stoen's new cause, and he set about doing the same kinds of things he had done in the past.
ReplyDeleteStoen loves the strategy, loves using his office to intimidate people, tries his prey in the press, usually succeeding in getting them to settle to avoid any more bad publicity, giving him another notch on his belt without ever having to go through a trial.
That this man continues to be allowed to practice law in this country is a mark against the legal profession, against the Bar Association, and against the CDAA.